Even after our strong miner, Mr. Hyde, left, the applicants kept coming.
“Greetings! I graduated top of my class from the Southern Magic Academy, and I wish to contribute my strength to this project…”
From an overzealous bachelor’s graduate who thought himself an elite, “Ah, this eye, you ask?
Huhu…
I was fighting a magical beast in the north when, alas…” to a patient suffering from a severe case of chuunibyou with a tragic backstory… All sorts of people gathered, but the pattern was always the same. What follows is the teaching material.
I spoke to the hesitant interviewee.
“Could you describe what kind of airship you envision, and how you believe you can contribute to it?”
“In my opinion… an airship would be perfect for use as a logistics transport vessel. If we use the milling magic developed by our school, we could dramatically increase the amount of grain transported!”
Once I eased the participant’s tension and the conversation got on track…
“Even if we assume you somehow solve the problem of the flour going rancid, how did you resolve the issue of impurities getting mixed in?”
Someone would start asking questions. This time, it was the princess.
“That is…”
“If you can’t solve that part, distributing it as flour would be difficult.”
“Yes…”
It’s not like the princess intended to conduct a high-pressure interview. That’s just how interviews are. The princess’s questions to gauge his abilities continued, and the interviewee’s face gradually darkened.
Just as he reached his limit, the interview ended. My job here was singular.
“You’ve worked hard. Please have a safe trip back.”
To smile and offer encouragement.
“Yes… thank you, Isaac…”
For the record, the princess gave this person a passing score. This pattern repeated itself.
“What do you think about using the airship for military purposes? Just dropping a chunk of iron from a high altitude would be enough to shatter any decent fortress. Please take a look at these calculations.”
“If you can just drop it, why do you need to do those calculations?”
“Pardon…?”
“Usually, one does precise calculations to avoid magical rebound, but there would be no reason for that in this case. What can you contribute?”
This time, Giuseppe sank a master’s student who loved calculations. And Giuseppe passed this master’s student.
“I heard you’ve already sold tickets for the airship to other nobles. Special locations require special events. Please behold this beautiful fireworks display.”
“You just burned metal with magic.”
“But I can do that too. Human mage, what can you do to help.”
“It seems there is nothing.”
This time, Balkan tormented a student with a double major in ‘metal and flame’. Unsurprisingly, Balkan, who loved fire and metal, gave this student a passing score.
‘Is it something like, ‘I’ll beat up the guy I’m taking with me’…?’
I wasn’t sure why they were doing it, but it seemed they usually gave a passing score to the person they grilled. In the midst of this, another applicant entered.
“Greetings. I am Eric, from the southern Magic Tower.”
He had an ordinary appearance, and his qualifications on paper weren’t bad.
‘Who’s going to beat up this person?’
I was watching the interview with interest when Giuseppe tilted his head.
“Your file says you’re from the southern Magic Tower, but your accent is a bit peculiar.”
“Ah, I lived in the Free City for a long time. My speech must have gotten mixed up. Haha…”
Eric answered with an awkward laugh. A short while later, his interview was over.
“Thank you for your time. Have a safe trip back.”
“Yes… yessir.”
Just as the interview ended and Eric stood up to leave. Tap, tap, tap. Suddenly, Princess Isolde tapped her knuckles on the desk a few times.
Eric paused and looked at the princess.
“…?”
A cold smile appeared on the princess’s lips as she watched him. She said, “You could have just left. Why did you stop?”
“…Pardon?”
“Just as I thought. You have no idea.”
The princess continued.
“In the south, there is a custom of knocking on a desk instead of clapping when a presentation ends. If you were truly from the southern Magic Tower, there’s no way you wouldn’t know that.”
“You. What is your identity?”
For a moment, Eric’s eyes wavered.
Scurry.
Eric bolted towards the exit of the interview room.
“Damn it! Get out of the way!”
A faint afterimage of mana was left behind due to his use of acceleration magic.
‘An industrial spy…?’
I wasn’t sure of the exact circumstances, but I held an iron ball and thought. To shoot or not to shoot. If blood was spilled here, the interviews would be halted.
Then the people who had been waiting since yesterday would surely have to line up all over again. I didn’t want that.
“Catch that man!”
The guards shouted and rushed forward, but they were a step too late. Eric was already near the back door, preparing a spell in our direction.
‘A smoke screen spell.’
It seems he has no killing intent. I should try to subdue him with Telepathy instead of the iron ball. Unlike usual, the message I wanted to convey wasn't clear.
I wondered if I could transmit killing intent and gave it a try. The brainwaves, or mana waves, were decomposed into simple trigonometric functions. Then, targeting Eric’s brain, I performed an inverse Fourier transformation on the decomposed waves.
Magic composition. Execution. Fwoosh!
In that instant, the spell Eric was preparing evaporated.
“Keuk…!”
Eric collapsed to the floor with a final gasp.
Thud. Success.
I had perfectly disarmed him without spilling a single drop of blood.
Industrial spy. Cut!
The mages who were waiting began to murmur.
“What was that just now…?”
“An invisible attack? Was that Wind Magic?”
“As expected of the first head of the School of Ideal Gas Magic…!”
Immediately after, the princess signaled Laura, and the interviews were temporarily paused.
In the interview room, now empty of all applicants, Doloren asked me.
“That thing just now… what was it?”
“It was Telepathy.”
Doloren’s face crumpled.
“Oh, come on, don’t lie.”
“It’s true…”
If my own advisor doesn’t believe me, who will… I felt a little sad. Giuseppe chided Doloren.
“Head of the school!”
As expected of my senior. I knew I could count on you!
“Is this the time to be leisurely asking what that was? You should be worrying if your junior was startled!”
Huh?
Isn’t this how it was supposed to go? Doloren wore the same expression as I did. Meaning, she was flustered.
She said, “Huh?
No…
I just watched because I thought it would be dangerous to subdue him up close!” Doloren protested as if wronged, but even Balkan chimed in.
“Hey, human mage. If something happens to this fellow, it’s all over. Can you take responsibility?”
“No… I just… thought it ended well…”
It seemed Doloren had no one on her side. She said to me, “I’m sorry, Isaac.”
“…It’s alright, Head of the school.”
It couldn’t be helped. In the island of the one-eyed, the two-eyed are the abnormal ones. Just then, the princess opened her mouth.
“How dare they… aim for my treasure.”
It seemed the princess was also quite angry. The princess spoke to the guards.
“The interviews are suspended indefinitely. And drag this man to the Bureau of Magical Investigation at once.”
Yes, ma’am!
The guards answered forcefully.
‘This is no time for jokes…’
If the interviews were postponed like this, there was no point in subduing the mage with such difficulty. If I had known this would happen, I would have just shot the iron ball as quickly as possible. That would have been more certain.
Everyone was taking this far more seriously than I expected. When you start a business like this, spies are bound to come flocking… If we react like this every time, the project will never progress.
I spoke to the princess.
“Your Highness, please calm down.”
“How can I be calm? You were almost in danger.”
“Halting the interviews might be exactly what they want. The enemy was likely aiming for our confusion.”
I continued as calmly as possible.
“As you can see, I am perfectly fine, and no one was hurt. So… let’s finish what we were doing.”
The murderous intent in the princess’s eyes began to recede. I spoke to the princess again.
“Shall we resume the interviews?”
“…Very well.”
“Furthermore, could you please take measures to ensure this incident does not become a rumor?”
“I don’t know if I can silence the mages in their current state… but I will try.”
“Thank you.”
Bow.
I lowered my head. With that, the incident was perfectly contained. All that was left was to select the remaining personnel.
Isaac had subdued the spy without lifting a finger.
But how?
The mages in the waiting room were racking their brains over this question. One of them opened his mouth.
“What was that just now? Was it even magic?”
“I don’t know. My detection spell didn’t pick up any trace of it.”
Others joined the two’s conversation.
“I’ve got it. I think it was Ideal Gas Magic.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He must have depleted the air in his throat to prevent him from chanting.”
“Piercing through a mage’s magic resistance? That seems impossible…”
“Well, what do you think it was?”
The mage pondered for a long while before answering.
“Maybe he sent a very strong Telepathy to knock him out?”
“Come on. If that were possible, he’d be closer to a dragon than a human.”
“…Was that too much of a stretch?”
“Yes, it was.”
Unfortunately, none of them could come up with a clear answer to this question.
“I’ll have to go out and investigate more.”
“I agree.”
Just then, a member of the Capital Guard entered the waiting room. He bowed his head to the mages and made a request.
“Everyone, we would appreciate it if you could keep what you have just seen a secret.”
“Huh? Ah… yes.”
The mages answered perfunctorily. They weren't the Imperial Guard, so there was no way they would take the request of a mere Capital Guard seriously. After the interviews ended, they scattered to various parts of the Empire and shared this bizarre experience with their colleagues.
It took only an instant for the 100-percent pure account of their experience to be distorted into a strange rumor. A pub in the eastern part of the Empire.
“So… you’re saying Isaac just stared at the assailant, and he keeled over?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly it.”
“Come on, that’s too much. He must have used some kind of magic. Who can kill someone with just a look?”
“Hmm… that’s true.”
It was the moment ‘knocked over’ was distorted into ‘killed.’
“Come to think of it… did Sir Isaac’s eyes flash a little then?”
A few days later, this story had been distorted into a rumor that ‘Isaac shoots killing rays from his eyes.’ A supply base in the northern part of the Empire. Here too, rumors about Isaac were spreading like wildfire.
“What I heard is a bit different. They said Isaac shouted, and the spy collapsed, bleeding from his nose.”
“So he bled from all seven orifices?”
“Was it seven? It was something like that.”
This story was now distorted into a rumor that ‘Isaac’s shout caused the spy to bleed from all seven orifices.’ Besides these, the strange rumors were too numerous to count. This was because the original rumor that ‘a spy collapsed for no reason’ was like a blank canvas.
The flood of rumors even began to mix among themselves. The public, who heard the news later, even came to believe that Isaac had defeated dozens of spies, each in a different way. Of course, no one believed that the spy had collapsed for ‘no reason.’
Everything in the world has a cause, so who would believe such a nonsensical rumor?